"We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive"
About this Quote
Lewis slips a moral ambush into the word "progress". He takes a term that usually flatters the speaker and treats it like a navigation problem: direction matters more than speed. The line works because it punctures a modern reflex - that forward motion is inherently virtuous, that novelty equals improvement, that history is a one-way escalator. Lewis, a Christian apologist writing in an age intoxicated by technological triumph and ideological certainty, insists that movement without orientation is just efficient error.
The cleverness is in the reversal. He doesn’t argue against progress; he redefines it so that repentance becomes the most advanced act available. "About-turn" is plain, almost physical language, turning grand debates into a simple bodily choice: stop, pivot, retrace. That concreteness makes the ethical demand harder to wriggle out of. You can’t hide behind abstract intentions when the map is wrong.
Subtextually, Lewis is also diagnosing pride. Admitting you’re on the wrong road costs status, ego, and sometimes community; it requires the kind of humility that modern politics, careerism, and even personal branding treat as weakness. By calling the person who turns back "the most progressive", Lewis steals the prestige of progress-talk and hands it to the unfashionable virtues: self-correction, moral realism, and restraint.
In context, this is Lewis as anti-utopian without being anti-change. He’s warning that the real enemy isn’t movement but misdirection - and that the bravest form of modernity may be the willingness to say, early and publicly, "We were wrong."
The cleverness is in the reversal. He doesn’t argue against progress; he redefines it so that repentance becomes the most advanced act available. "About-turn" is plain, almost physical language, turning grand debates into a simple bodily choice: stop, pivot, retrace. That concreteness makes the ethical demand harder to wriggle out of. You can’t hide behind abstract intentions when the map is wrong.
Subtextually, Lewis is also diagnosing pride. Admitting you’re on the wrong road costs status, ego, and sometimes community; it requires the kind of humility that modern politics, careerism, and even personal branding treat as weakness. By calling the person who turns back "the most progressive", Lewis steals the prestige of progress-talk and hands it to the unfashionable virtues: self-correction, moral realism, and restraint.
In context, this is Lewis as anti-utopian without being anti-change. He’s warning that the real enemy isn’t movement but misdirection - and that the bravest form of modernity may be the willingness to say, early and publicly, "We were wrong."
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning from Mistakes |
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